Half-winged
by FeabhraBlth
Summary: Shinra has made the mistake of capturing the fledgling of one of the most powerful half-winged immortals in existence. Zack's mission is simple; return the captive before insult is made, but all soon spins out of control as he is drawn into the tragic story of an immortal named Cloud, who has lost all he ever cherished at the hands of his maker. Slash, vampirism, NC, dark.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi, this is my first story on , though I've been a reader for years now. I'm so excited about the remake of FFVII and am currently obsessed with the characters all over again (not that I was ever not obsessed)**

 **This story was inspired by an original fiction I'm writing on another site. I hope you enjoy.**

 **Warnings: dark and adult themes, vampirism, non-consensual situations, captivity, violence.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or any of its characters, they belong to the amazing people at Square Enix.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – Scrape**

Immediately upon pushing open the heavy bolted door of the restricted lower grounds of Shinra Research Facility Seven, Zack was met with the frantic, brunette form of the Class A Biotechnologist, Lucrecia Crescent, at the threshold.

He could see straight away that the woman was in a fluster, her white coat slung haphazardly over her shoulders as if she'd put it on in transit and her face pink with bits of her long hair clinging to her forehead.

"Zack," she greeted him, lowly and intently.

She was relieved he was there. This side of things wasn't her area of expertise and she wanted to hand responsibility – and the _consequences –_ over to him as soon as possible. He didn't blame her for that, and he didn't stop to exchange words with her as he strode straight on down the white-washed corridor ahead of them. Lucrecia followed, her heels clinking manically against the highly-glossed lino.

"How on Gaia did this happen?" He demanded, looking sidelong at her over his shoulder. She shook her head, a shorter piece of hair falling into her face which she scraped back mindlessly.

"The guards spotted him on the upper plate, hanging around the entertainment sector. They figured he was a young one, perfect for our needs. He doesn't seem..." she sighed distractedly, cutting herself off before going on, "they caught him easily using guerrilla tactics, thundara'd and bagged him and brought him here. You know how they are. Hojo gave orders last Monday for a living specimen to be brought in for the more advanced stages of our project, but they needed to be careful, to watch for one that was isolated and wouldn't be difficult to contain. They were supposed to watch and wait and then attempt the capture only with clearance. We expect them to be careful. None of us had any idea that..."

"This all happened last night?" Zack interrupted, looking over at her as they turned another corner.

"They brought him in around three in the morning. He was out for most of the day."

"And when he woke up you had contact with him?" He continued his questioning as they paused briefly for Lucrecia to clear access through one of the numerous sets of secured doors they would have to pass through to get to the labs. The air was becoming thicker and more flat with antiseptic the further they weaved into the network of empty hallways and locked rooms. The lights grew harsher on their skin; exposing pores and lines and other imperfections in vivid definition.

"Yes, I was supposed to observe its– his sedation and long-term containment so we could start work with him," she answered, no inflection in her voice to indicate she found anything wrong with _this_ part of her story, no guilt, of course, "but he started talking when he woke up. The guards told us to ignore him and unsurprisingly tried using force to quieten him. But something about his words, what he was saying, gave me pause. Gast was of the same mind."

"Eh, the creature told you himself?" Zack repeated sceptically, giving her a questioning look, "and you believed him, just like that?"

Lucrecia turned her face forward, "not just like that, Zack. As with any other question we are presented with, we ran tests. And the results have given what I consider strong proof to verify the creature's claims. I'm positive we have a potentially serious situation here."

He didn't bother to ask any more. He'd known Lucrecia for over four years and knew enough to know that she was not the type of woman that needed to be second-guessed. He stayed silent for the remaining ten minutes it took them to reach a more heavily secured area within the main laboratory sector, which Lucrecia had to access using iris and card identification. After that she led him through a series of smaller halls and finally into a set of observation rooms.

They viewing room they stepped into had white tiled walls and floors, brighter than the corridors, and was empty except for one simple thin-legged table with a laptop currently open on top of it. On the far wall a wide viewing window looked into a smaller, dark-lit room. That room could be accessed by a door on the left.

Two men were already standing at the window, their backs to them as they stared through what was most likely one-way glass. They didn't turn greet them when they came in, and as he looked through the glass himself, Zack understood why.

The light inside the small room was weak, only a bare low-energy bulb, he guessed, but apparently nothing stronger was needed to illuminate, like a performer under stage lights, the vivid spectre of the figure standing under it. A mass of blond hair was the first thing that caught Zack's eye, bright and clear from across the room, disorderly and chaotic but… eye-catching. For one moment Zack was transported back years before, to a quiet theatre room where the actors talked about goddesses and gifts…

A gift from the goddess, that was what they said, something exceptional with a history behind the beauty that drew him in. Barely any of the creature's features were visible, his body tilted away from the glass, but what glimpses Zack did get of the pale flesh and slender limbs were apparently enough to enrapture his attention for several minutes, until Lucrecia strode forward and broke the silence.

Her gaze first went to him for only a second, long enough to communicate a silent message that made him stiffen uncomfortably, before she acknowledged the other men who finally turned to face her.

"Zack, this is Professor Gast Faremis, Class A Researcher in the Science Department, and you know Commander Heidegger," she said. The two men nodded. One was a tall, thin man wearing, like Lucrecia, a lab coat with the Shinra company logo stitched onto the breast. He was lanky and civilised-looking, resembling a scholar or University professor more than a scientist with his widow's peak and drooping moustache. His age was probably somewhere between late fifties and early sixties, though it was often difficult to tell with Shinra employees. The mounting pressures of the job aged them quickly; Zack would himself be a young old man.

The other man in the room was the head of the company's 'Public Safety' division. Large and – to some – imposing, he was dressed in his typical green suit with gold trimmings along the lapels, with numerous accolades pinned to the right breast. Zack thought that his beard was ridiculously long by now, reaching half-way down his chest, like some bastardised version of a wizard or something. Lucrecia was correct in saying they knew each other, and it was because of this _familiarity_ that they only exchanged a quick look of acknowledgment before sliding their attention back to the scientists in the room.

"Thank you for making it here so quickly," Gast uttered, extending a long arm across the table separating them. Zack took it and rattled back his title as way of greeting.

"Zack Fair, 1st Class SOLDIER and Head of the company defence sector."

Gast raised a brow, looking him over.

"You're young for the title," he commented. Zack offered a lopsided grin and shrugged.

"Yeah but I'm awesome," he sighed, snickering when Lucrecia rolled her eyes.

"Zack–"

"Okay, okay. So you have proof of the Sire?" He moved on, getting straight to the point, not interested in going over the details Lucrecia had already more or less clarified and he'd been able to fill in on his own. Gast rubbed a hand over the back of his head and nodded wearily.

"The half-winged allowed me to take some of his blood to verify his claims. I ran works immediately and found that the sample is indeed very unusual. It's unlike any I've ever tested in this lab before, in fact. In terms of our _proof_ ," he seemed to dislike the word, or held the opinion that it was a foolish thing to have to explain. He then bent down and tapped some keys on the laptop before swishing it around to face them, "as you can see here, the protein and cell characteristics suggest residues of a very great age, older than the bone-deposits pulled from some of our rarer specimens in VP. They would suggest, possibly, an age greater than a millennium," he paused there, for effect Zack supposed. It was a scientifically exciting statement after all.

Zack ran his eyes over the details on the screen, flicking over the scientific data that he only understood enough to get the gist of the significance of the cell-like graphics accompanying the text. Once he was done he stood up straight again and shifted his hands on his hips. He was still dressed in his training clothes, tracksuit pants and an old t-shirt, having had no time after Lucrecia's call to stop at his quarters to change.

The call had been urgent and brief. The company's guards had acquired what they believed to be a perfect specimen for Hojo's new project, signifying a new stage in their exploration of a race that had long been a threat to the order of the Planet; the half-winged. This young one, weak and easily controlled, had seemed to be exactly the type they needed for the initiative.

And then they'd made a discovery that threatened the entire existence of the company. That the young one may in fact be a fledgling of one of the most powerful half-wingds thought to be in existence, a creature that had the ability to destroy the company and everyone belonging to it in a single night.

So here he stood now, less than a half hour after receiving the call, in the frigid underground labs where the bright lighting exposed the patches of sweat drying along his neck and under his arms, and the pills clinging to his chest.

He looked up when Heidegger thundered into the conversation.

"Just because the thing has old blood in it doesn't mean it's _his_ creature. That's if _he_ exists at all, I'll remind you that we haven't one bit of intel on that leader to date! This one might just have an old Sire, long dead, and knows that there's enough of that blood left in it to back up a story to get itself out of here," the man insisted in his typical hoarse rage, spittle spattering out from his lips after every sentence. He was becoming a fat man, the way service men do after receiving cushier promotions from active duty, and Zack could imagine the rolls of skin beneath all that dark hair.

Not interesting in looking at it, he idly turned his head to viewing window again. He stilled.

The face behind the glass was no longer turned away and hidden. It was staring right at them now, raised enough for the light to fall on it and illuminate, like porcelain, the pale, immortal skin.

Around his face the jagged blond strands were almost blinding where the light touched them, full and thick like new-born chocobo feathers. And within them two eyes peered out. Eyes that were the brightest blue Zack had ever seen, brighter than the sky in Gongaga during the summertime, than the sea in Sol... They were almost false-looking, twin pools of materia blue set into a face that was flawless and clear as he supposed he expected, but at the same time, and only noticed this after all of the other details set in, oddly shaded and darkened with shadows.

Yes, under those bright eyes, around the lips, along the arches of the cheekbones, Zack could see the darkened skin that spoke of tiredness, a _human_ kind, which lent something... _suffering_ to what he was looking at. A mix of something so very human in something that was doubtlessly not. Was it just from the day spent in the labs?

"Zack."

Blinking, he looked down at Lucrecia's hand on his arm. When their eyes met she held them again, just for a second, before directing him to the other men.

They had apparently become caught up in an argument while he'd been… distracted. Gast was stoically looking at the ceiling with his arms crossed and the sleeves of his coat pulled back over his wrists. His eyes were flickering back and forth with what were likely the numerous counter-arguments his mind was forming against what Heidegger was saying.

"And it's too young for the age it claims," the man was growling, slashing a hand at the screen but not looking at it, "my men took it down easily and there wasn't a scratch on one them for it. A powerful one wouldn't have gotten caught by that team, only four men, we wouldn't be able to _hold_ him here! I'm telling you the thing is lying and should be put into confinement now!"

 _It, it's, thing._ Zack felt like catching the man by his too-tight collar and slamming him against the wall.

He took a breath, and then looked at Lucrecia, noting for a second how dark her hair was, beautiful and gleaming, but… dull somehow. "He has a point," he said to her, shaking his thoughts off.

Gast answered, directing them to the laptop again and pointing out different areas of the screen as he spoke, "as I've said, the blood sample is strange. There seems to be two different types of cells of very different natures prominent within the section. The first is, as I've mentioned, a very old and dominant type, most likely belonging to the Sire as the half-winged claims. The second is a cell that I swear to Gaia, characteristically, is much the same as a human's. It seems as if it has not yet mutated as the half-winged blood should." He pulled up a comparison of what Zack assumed was a fully mutated half-winged cell.

"Could that not just be a victim's blood?"

Gast shook his head. "Victim's blood is immediately absorbed by the mutated cells of the half-winged, that's how the body is fed, they don't move freely within the bloodstream any more than pieces of our food would," the man took a step forward and wrapped his knuckles on the table beside the computer, "interestingly, to one of the samples I added a drop of human blood and the human-like cells did consume it the same as any Immortal's would, see here."

Zack watched on as the images on the screen came to life and played out what looked to him like a bloody game of Pacman, the exterior globs swarming around and then consuming a drop placed in their centre.

"…so they are immortal, it's just as if they haven't changed yet," the old man narrated over the end.

"So then the thing _is_ lying and we're the fools for playing into it!" Heidegger held up his hands, exasperation written across his features. There was an angry, impatient energy about him, and Zack knew why. He didn't want it suggested that _his_ guards had made a mistake, had put the company at risk. He would have to answer to the President after all, and he was not in the business of forgiveness.

There was more to it than all that though. Zack, as already stated, knew this man. Knew how his biology worked. He knew that the thought of letting the creature on the other side of that glass go free would wound his ego more than any penalties from the company could. Mercy was a foreign thing to Heidegger.

"That still doesn't eliminate the existence of the older cells, they are clearly from an ancient half-winged who very well might be Se-," Gast stopped himself, his eyes fluttering upwards before closing as he seemed to sigh at himself, "the Sirewe believe it is," he went on, "the cells work strangely, symbiotically I would say. I would need more time to study it but it seems as if they are, yes, working in unison."

"So study the–"

"Look," Lucrecia interrupted finally. She walked towards the table and placed a hand on it, then pinned her eyes on each of them in turn, "the blood-work is proof enough. We can't stand here debating it any longer." She held up a hand at Heidegger when he was about to do just that. He begrudgingly kept silent, but his breath was loud through his nostrils thereafter.

"This is a huge problem," the woman went on, addressing Zack primarily, "we can't take the risk of upsetting one of their leaders, especially one this powerful. And _he_ claims that this will upset him very, very much. That none of us will live to see the sunrise if the Sire finds out of the company's treatment of him," she shook her head, "of course we were sceptical to believe him at first but the bloodwork supports the theory and now I'd rather not take the risk. Zack, tell me you agree?"

Zack took a step towards them, "yeah, I agree," he drawled, holding up his hands, "Shinra has always been aware that interfering with the half-winged population is a dangerous game exactly for the risk of something like this happening. I've already told the president and the guards," he paused there and let his eyes slide over to the member of just that party standing in the room, "not to go ahead with the moogle-brained snatch and contain missions they've been planning. Using jungle tactics against this type of creature, as if they're any other monster that we can contain, is a ridiculously stupid notion and one that my mentor would never have authorised." He stopped there, feeling the temperature of his blood begin to rise in his veins as anger and Mako boiled within him. Anger, and the pressure of light at the corner of his vision, piercing into him like a phoenix summon.

"They are a people, different to us but the same as well," he went on, crossing his arms in front of himself, "and, well unless you work for Shinra, people don't often go missing without loved ones noticing."

A drawn out moment of silence followed the end of his words. He could feel the impact on the others in the room; Stephani's quiet vindication, Gast's weary agreement, and Heidegger…

"Well how do we know it's not too late then?" The man asked scathingly, clearly interested in remaining antagonistic even if he was bending slightly to their side, "if the thing is as _important_ to the leader as you say he claims, is he not already aware of his disappearance and on his way to take it back?"

"He says there's a window," Lucrecia answered quickly, nodding her head at the glass partition, "he said that the other mightn't know yet."

"And why would _it_ say that?" The man was fast to counter, "and why would we believe it either way?"

Lucrecia shrugged and looked at Zack again, "he seems… interested in working on this with us. He was the one who told us in the first place, and he's been eager to leave here before the situation escalates..."

"Because he wants out!"

"Look," Zack cut in, holding a hand up and closing his eyes to stop the headache their bickering was causing, "I'm going in to talk to him. We're only wasting time here debating, I need to talk to him and get a handle on things for myself."

"Hojo will have your head, woman. He's been told we have a specimen and is flying back tomorrow to begin procedures," Heidegger pointed out.

Lucrecia looked at him, her eyes going cold at the mention of her boss's name. Zack understood; if Heidegger was without mercy then Hojo was utterly without anything close to a soul. He was not the man you wanted to get on the bad side of, and Zack found himself worried about Lucrecia's well-being.

"I'll deal with Hojo," she said lowly, finality in her tone. She walked around the side of the table and reached a hand into her coat pocket, taking out her access card. Zack followed her to the door and as she lifted her hand to the swiping slot, she spoke softly to him, "I don't think he's dangerous but we've kept him restrained anyway, in case… Ideally he would be sedated and locked down but… we felt that mightn't be smart. Do you think you'll be okay without a weapon?"

"I'm not without," he said to her curtly and the weight of metal against his ankle became prominent for a moment. He nodded at the slot, "I'll be alright, open it."

* * *

There was only a wall between them; a single layer of bricks and plaster and treated glass, but the difference in atmosphere between the two rooms was startling.

Shut into the second one as the door buzzed closed behind him, the dim lighting forced Zack into blindness for seconds before his eyes adjusted away from the florescent paleness the rest of the building had been, and to the dimness of the small room with its dull grey walls and metallic bolted-down table in the centre. The air was quiet in there, isolated, and for a moment Zack was brought back in time, years before, when his mentor shut him into training rooms with the same locking doors, not giving any indication that he'd open them again.

He was snapped back to the present by the sound of chain links dragging against the floor. He looked to the source of the noise and felt himself become overwhelmed again at the sight of what had to be the most… vivid creature he'd ever laid eyes on. It was a good thing he'd had a glimpse through the glass already, he thought, because otherwise he very easily might have lost his mind at the proximity of a beauty that had gained a new dimension in their closeness. Now there were different shades in the bright hair gathered in dishevelled shards, scaffolding to the delicate, fine structuring of bones that belonged to a boy that had to be only in his late teens. And the eyes…

Holy Gaia.

He lowered his own from them and noted again the shadows underneath. He could see them more clearly now, under the eyes and around the creature's facial bones. He also took note of a clotted cut on the side of the bottom lip and dried blood on the inner-curve of the left eye; neither of which seemed close to healing yet. The imperfections were at odds with the otherwise unmarred beauty. Gold and blood and shadows; an angel cast into the night.

The half-winged was dressed in what Zack assumed were his own clothes, a long-sleeved grey t-shirt that was loose around his arms and neck, dark denim jeans and combat-type boots. They'd put him in heavy duty shackles and the thick silver shone sharply around his sleeves in three different loops up along his forearm to his elbows, the weight of them forcing the creature to bow slightly forward with his hands gathered in front of himself.

Zack wondered if the bindings would be any deterrent at all if the creature really decided to come at him.

"You call us 'half-winged'?" A voice broke the silence, low and young and hoarse. The creature kept his eyes lowered as he spoke, his pale lashes scraping against his cheekbones.

Zack shrugged and shook himself out of his daze, inwardly reprimanding himself for his continuous lack of focus, and making an effort to remember who he was and what he was dealing with. He took a step forward.

"Yeah… Pretty original right?" He gave a small laugh, resting his foot in front of himself, "I guess they started using it because of the legends and it just stuck since."

The boy nodded and shifted a bit so he was turned further away from the mirror and more to him, "I suppose it's better than other names you could have used," he murmured, his voice a rasp in the still room.

"Like what?"

The looked upwards in contemplation, smiling softly, "cursed, vampire, demon… monster…"

Zack sucked in some air between his teeth, "those are some options I guess," he held out a hand, "is there a term you use yourselves?" He figured that the creature might be more open with him if he didn't feel so blatantly prejudiced against. Labels were a powerful thing after all.

The other just shrugged subtly, making his chains jingle again. Still looking down. "We just use each other's names mostly. I don't know… we don't need to define ourselves very often."

"Alright," Zack ignored the dozens of questions that came to him, warring inside his mind as an unexpected curiosity took over him, making him want to question this creature about the secrets of his world. After all, it was no common thing to come face to face with a creature that, even to the company, was more an idea than anything. One in a million, those were the odds of meeting one face to face unless it was seconds before your death. One in a million.

"Well then," he said, clearing his throat, "I'm Zack Fair. If you give me your name, I'll call you that and nothing else," he offered.

The half-winged at last looked up, his bright eyes shining vividly as he proceeded to slowly look him over, not bothering to hide that he was doing it like most people might. "I'm Cloud," he said at length, setting his eyes on his face.

Zack felt his breath catch in his throat but forced himself to ignore it. Then he took in what the creature had just said.

"Wait, _Cloud_?" He repeated, tilting his head.

The other nodded. "Yes."

"Like…" Jack raised his finger towards the ceiling and squinted at him. The creature nodded again, his expression falling somewhat flat. Zack sensed he was prickling the half-winged with his questions, so quickly nodded his head.

"So Cloud," he said again, nodding and nodding, "uh, is it just Cloud?"

The half-winged smiled softly and looked to the side, "I don't think there's a need for anymore, after all this time.

"But your apparent Sire thinks differently, right? Sephiroth _Jenova_ ," Zack pointed out.

A silence swept into the room on the heels of the name. Like Shiva casting ice-spells and freezing them all in place.

He watched Cloud's bowed lips twitched subtly, "yes," the half-winged said, the word dragging prettily from those lips, "his would be a name not as easily dropped as mine."

Again Zack had questions, wanting to take this opportunity that might never come again, to find out more about these elusive, pale creatures who seemed to both share the Planet with them, and also exist in a completely different realm of the night, dealing in all things sensual and mysterious. How could anyone who knew about them not wonder about them, how they lived? Even someone as disillusioned as he was.

"I want to ask you a few questions," he said eventually, because he had a job to do and he couldn't keep getting distracted, "let's sit down." He held a hand out to the table.

The creature, Cloud, looked down at the table and then walked slowly over to it, almost completely soundless as he pulled one of the chairs out and took a seat. He rested his bound arms on the table top; his long fingers tangled together, and looked up at him expectantly. Zack sat down across from him, feeling the weight of three sets of eyes on the back of his neck. He inclined his head.

"So you're saying that you are a fledgling of the half-winged we know as Sephiroth Jenova, son of the Calamity? That this immortal exists and is alive today?"

Cloud smiled amicably and nodded. Zack sat back and considered him, trying to find something sly or deceitful in the calm, almost emotionless façade the boy was displaying. He couldn't, but that didn't mean it wasn't there, only that the creature might be well-practiced in swaying human minds.

"That's pretty bad luck for us then, right? To have chosen you as a target," he said slowly, watching the creature closely for a reaction.

Cloud only shrugged his shoulders and glanced up at the mirror, "in my experience, people often choose their actions and put the outcome down to luck after the repercussions."

Zack had to agree with that assessment in relation to the current situation.

"So tell me, how can it be that a fledgling of Sephiroth could come to be captured like this?" He asked next, his tone growing more sceptical now even though he wasn't fully sure why. Something about that name, the way they were expected to crawl below it, the way the boy admitted to his ownership under it…

Cloud looked down at his hands again and shifted his wrists, very delicately, within the restraints. "He was not near. I was alone at the time. If I wasn't, there would be nothing left to bury of the men that came after me nor the company that hired them." The words were not spoken any differently to what he had said already. He didn't appear to be saying them as a threat for his release, or a show of his power within the half-winged race. They were spoken as if they were the simplest facts, and it was a chilling thing to witness.

"And you don't share this power?" Zack asked, crossing his arms, "you couldn't fight them off on your own?"

Cloud's eyes flickered; maybe the first reactive response Zack had managed to get out of him since he came into the room.

"They caught me at a fortuitous moment, I was not in a position to fight them off," the half-winged explained curtly.

Zack looked at the dark circles under the creature's eyes again. Yes, he looked tired, weak, but the SOLDIER sensed that attempting to delve any further along that line of enquiry would get him nowhere, so he moved on.

"Does Sephiroth have many fledglings?"

The other gave another subtle twitch of his lips and shook his head, ruffling the longer strands of hair around his face. "I can't answer that. I'm not here to help you in whatever it is you're trying to achieve here, so I don't advise attempting to use me for information."

Zack sat forward and patted his hand on the table between them. "No, I'm just trying to understand how you're saying your Sire will destroy us all if he finds out you're here, when he might not even know you're missing yet? He is so protective, but he left you alone?"

"It's complicated," the half-winged said calmly, lifting his head again and pinning Zack with his glistening eyes. Zack had seen two different photographs of half-winged before and their features seemed similarly beautiful with the dark magic behind them, but they were not this vivid, this unearthly. Cloud had to have been an exceptional human before he was ever changed.

It made sense that something, someone, like that could have captured the attention of one of the most legendary immortal leaders on the Planet.

"He didn't leave me alone, but I was alone," Cloud continued to explain, though his words weren't straight-forward and he seemed to be balancing what he wanted to say against what he didn't.

Zack held up his hand, trying to understand. "So he didn't know where you were? You left on your own?"

"I do, sometimes," the other agreed, and he smiled more obviously then, even though it was still really just an upward, almost cynical, tilt of his lips. Nice lips, a deep indent beneath the lower that made it long and straighter than the bowed top…

"I'm getting good at it," he went on, his tone almost defiant, "or I think I am. I wondered if he was only playing at letting me go further, still had spies watching… but now I suppose I know he wasn't."

Zack frowned, taking in the words. Cloud sounded like some sort of teenager sneaking out of the house at night without his parents knowing.

"Why do you want be good at that?" He asked at last, lowering his hand, "wouldn't it be safer to stay close?"

Cloud tapped his fingers on the table top, his nails clinking on the metal very sharply, "yes." Then he straightened up and glanced at the mirror before bringing his eyes back to him, the smile morphing into a more serious expression. "Zack, you need to let me go before he does find out," he said, stretching his hands forward, "your people made a mistake attacking me, I told them. If he finds out I won't be able to stop what happens. You need to let me leave and we don't have time for the men in the next room to argue about it anymore."

Zack wasn't surprised by the last comment; he knew half-winged senses were most-likely keen enough to penetrate even a proofed wall. There was a bigger question at hand, and it was why the half-winged was even warning them about this threat at all, why he didn't just wait for his Sire to find him and destroy them all as he said he could?

"Why do you care what he does to us?" He said at last, narrowing his eyes, "why not just let him come?"

"You don't need to know that," Cloud shifted forward in his seat, "if you choose not to believe me like your angry friend out there, I can't change your mind. I won't explain myself."

"You understand this is difficult for us," Zack found himself hissing in exasperation, "that we can't be sure you're not lying, or that you won't go out and tell your _Sire_ everything you've seen here the minute we release you. I'm sure you've caught on to something of our purpose here, right, wouldn't loyalty hold you to repeating it?"

Cloud's stared back at him, his features seeming to darken for a moment before straightening out again. For almost a full minute he didn't say anything, and then, "no, it doesn't hold me." He stretched his arms out further along the table, sliding them along like a snake as he lowered his head and looked up at Zack through his lashes, "you think any of this matters to me?" He shook his head and looked towards the mirror again, "of course I know what you're trying to do here, what your purpose in detaining me was. But I can assure you, thousands of years of scientific intervention will need to pass before your company would be considered even a theoretical threat to my maker."

He turned back to Zack

"You have no idea what you're dealing with."

Zack could feel the reactions from the people in the other room, the scientists' murmured acknowledgement, Heidegger's snort of outrage. He himself just sat there staring at the half-winged.

"You have us at a disadvantage then, I guess, whatever we decide," he said at length, "if we keep you, your Sire will come and we're a thousand years away from a defence against him, so we're toast. If we let you go we risk you leading him back here to us. Either way we're pretty much chopped chocobo feed. Which is funny, because your hair looks almost exactly like a chocobo. So maybe _you'll_ feed on us?"

Cloud had given him a soft, patient smile and was about to respond, when the door to the room opened and Lucrecia came in, causing them both to look over.

"If he does figure it out, is there any chance of explaining to him that it was a mistake?" The woman asked, clicking over to the table, "that the company means him no personal insult?"

Cloud stared up at her, the way one does when studying an object in great detail. His mouth pursed into a line and he slowly raised his bound hands to rub at the cut on his lip, his knuckles coming back smudged with blood.

"No."

Zack smiled grimly.

"We're going to let you go Cloud," Lucrecia said after only a short silence, "Zack will take you to wherever you think would be best, far away from here, and if it's too late and your Sire has discovered us… He will speak on behalf of this company."

Zack stared over at her but she studiously ignored his gaze and waited for the half-winged to reply, her body tense and awkward. He turned his head to just in time to see those lips move, a deep bow on the top, blood on the bottom.

"Alright."

But it wasn't, was it? Any of it.

* * *

In the end it was more than two hours before he and the half-winged were on the road, breaking the distance to the upper-plate in one of the company's armoured vehicles.

As predicted, Heidegger had protested against the plan the second Zack stepped back into the viewing room. The man's arguments weren't senseless; he didn't think that they should trust the creature, and thought there was no way they could be sure he wouldn't return with more of his kind. In the end, after a tense call with Scarlett, they'd arranged that Zack would take the armoured vehicle and that the half-winged would be blindfolded for the drive. He'd been unconscious on the way there so it was reasonable to assume that he didn't know where the compound was located already, unless of course there were ways his kind _could_ know these things.

For whatever good it would do though, Zack thought he was glad for the blindfold; he wasn't sure he would have been able to keep calm throughout the journey with that intense gaze drilling into his side.

At the same time, he thought he might hate it. The half-winged sat beside him now with the thick black material covering most of his face except for his lips and chin and making his hair flatten in around his neck, the blond contrasting sharply against the material. He was still and silent, his wrists shackled on his lap, as the lights from outside ran over him in waves, coming again and again like a moving ocean of green patterns against his features. His hair and skin absorbed all of it artfully, lighting up in green and red and blue, like a rock star in a music video.

They had miles ahead of them, and with the absence of peering eyes looking in and documenting their every word, Zack felt no need to refrain from indulging some of his curiosity while he had the chance.

"You told them you were over a century old?" He spoke up, hearing his voice coarse and low against the hum of the engine.

The half-winged didn't move, his blind gaze set on the windscreen as he answered, "Yes. I was born one-hundred and fifty-two years ago."

Zack tried to relate that length of time to the young-looking thing sitting beside him. He couldn't, that was the thing with the half-winged; they really were ageless, frozen in the moment they were changed like fine dolls. Cloud would never be anything but the beautiful youth he'd been over a century ago, even if his soul had turned monstrous.

If… He had to wonder about that too. If Cloud was a monster, why was he saving them?

 _Unless he's not._ Maybe this really was a trap. At least that would make sense.

"That's really something," he said at length.

"I haven't _lived_ for all that time though," the half-winged went on, surprising Zack. "Only quarter of it, really."

"What do you mean?"

Cloud tilted his chin down and stretched his fingers out on his lap, extending the long digits until the skin pulled tight over the bones. "Are you curious about us, Zack Fair?"

A shiver went through Zack's body, making his grip tight against the steering wheel. He forced himself to answer. "I am."

"Because it's your job?"

He shrugged, "not just that."

Those lips twitched upwards in the shadow of the blindfold. "You don't have to guard your words with me. If you have questions, I'll answer them. Remember, I don't fear any threat from you."

Zack snorted and waited until he'd eased the car into the right lane before responding.

"We both have reasons for not being straightforward with each other," he said, "my employers wouldn't be happy to hear me sharing details of our company with what is potentially the greatest threat to it. And I assume your _Sire_ wouldn't like you revealing his secrets to us in turn, even if we're nothing to him as you keep pointing out."

"But where are they in this car? Here, now?" Cloud countered, turning his palms upwards as much as he could, "I've been alive a long time, but really I'm only living from second to second. The past and future are nothing, I've learned, the present is the only thing that's real. We might as well be the same age now; it wouldn't make a difference otherwise."

"Okay…"

"So they, my maker and your company, don't really exist now, do they? They're just memories and ideas."

Zack liked the words, so much that he was too surprised to answer for a long few seconds. _Just us_. No company, no Sephiroth, Son of the Calamity.

He was again grateful for the blindfold, grateful to have the time to lick his lips and get himself under control before he spoke again.

"Alright then, how did you come to be Sephiroth's fledgling. Did you know him when you were alive?"

The half-winged's body language hinted that he'd been expecting the question as he leaned back in his seat and tilted his head.

"That's a long story," he murmured.

"It's a long drive."

Cloud turned to him, and Zack had to wonder how blind he really was behind the material. Because he sure as hell felt like he could be seen at that moment.

"Tell me," he urged again.

The lips parted, white teeth but no visible fangs, shadow on the chin as the face moved away to stare at the half-moon through the passenger window.

"I was sixteen…"

* * *

 **So I hope you enjoyed the first chapter and if you did, please leave a review, constructive criticism is welcomed. Reviews are the only thing that will motivate me to write more, just saying ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Second chapter is up, we're going to spend some time going into Cloud's backstory now.**

 **Warnings: dark and adult themes, vampirism, non-consensual situations, captivity, violence.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or any of its characters, they belong to the amazing people at Square Enix.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 - Spark**

I was sixteen years old when I met the immortal, Sephiroth Jenova.

Back then I lived in a crowded little mountain town called Nibelheim, located just off the edge of the river separating it from what is now known as Cosmo Canyon. My father was never known to me, just a stranger that my mother had spent a summer night with and never saw again afterwards, and my mother herself passed when I was young from a blood fever. My aunt took me in after her death. Ena Lockheart was her name. Her husband, Ned Lockheart, owned a small sundry shop located on the edge of the town, right by the river docks, and it was in a little three-bedroom flat above the shop that I was raised along with their own six children.

Needless to say, it was crowded quarters, but everything about life then was. The town itself was just a compact gathering of crudely constructed buildings that pressed in on the narrow dirt streets with heavy roofs and patchwork fastenings; the very rough beginnings of modernity from the cities getting mixed up with crude obscurity of the rural past. The docks beside our little shop were quiet and neglected in the winter months, but from Spring to Summer's end would always be packed and bustling with activity, vessel boats roped in against the wharf to unload daily catches, fish stalls set up on the walkways where the mongers would bellow their wares from one end of the day to the other.

I remember all the sounds still; the rough voices of the vendors waking me up in the mornings through the thin windows of the flat, the crates scraping and sloshing in the mens' grips, the blades thudding into the wooden planks at each new cut...

I remember as well how at the end of the day, the berth would be soiled and wet with gore, the walkways and piers soaked with blood and slippery innards until men came to wash it away with buckets of river water. On the warmest days we couldn't open a window or door in the shop for the stench of it, and would need to wrap fabric around our noses and mouths when going out to avoid becoming ill from breathing too much in. Yes… I remember the scent of blood in the air, strong and metallic in the heat, drawing the water monsters up from the blackness under the piers to grab for their meals of pink guts and severed tails.

It sounds like misery I know, an awful kind of crude existence by today's standards, and maybe it was. The thing is, though, that we really didn't know any different back then. That was simply how people like us lived; few luxuries, hard work and daily struggles. As an orphan, I was lucky to have roof over my head, and with my uncle's shop failing at the start of this story, teetering us on the brink of disaster, the best I was hoping for was a training position in the region's military squadron, where I might eventually earn a wage and pay back some of what I owed the Lockhearts.

But in the meantime I was content with my situation, I was happy in my quiet way. I loved my cousins more than anything else in the world and felt no burden in helping manage them. My aunt and uncle were kind people and the household, for all its physical failings and my ever-present insecurity about my place within it, was a cheerful one. After the shop was closed every evening we'd spend hours up in the living quarters listening to our aunt, and sometimes uncle, read out the newest novel from the stalls, or make up their own stories during the winter when trade was sparse. Our aunt would sing sometimes, mostly songs she made up herself; mythical fairy hymns that made my dreams come alive for nights afterwards. They taught us our prayers, and to read and write in these evenings, making us take turns reading out chapters or religious passages to the rest and then practise writing the lines before bed. Literacy wasn't common or expected of our class back then, so it was a credit to my aunt that all seven of us were competent in it by the age of eight.

Quiet and small and often the target of the town bullies because of my circumstances, I really only had two close companions in those days. Tifa, the eldest of my cousins and a neighbour boy named Drogus Greenwelshe. When not needed for work or chores, the three of us would spend long days away from the town exploring the mountain valley around us. This was a dangerous pastime, since there was a threat of monsters hiding around the valley, but we were young and seemingly invincible and trusted the wards placed on the land to protect us. I was able to kill the smaller monsters we did come across; I'd been practising since I was a child.

Over the years we'd managed to collect a handful of hidden nooks that we liked to revisit. We'd pass the time in them, swimming in a stream, just lying about in the sun, or reading the new monster encyclopaedias that the land travellers sometimes brought from the cities – and my aunt disapproved of.

It was on one of these days, as the three of us were sitting around on the flat rocks of a small pool clearing that looked down into the valley of the town and wild fields around it, that we spotted an ebony carriage making its way over the winding dirt road from the north. Tifa spotted it first, calling our attention to it when it was still but a dark blot in the distant landscape.

It was the finest thing I'd ever seen in my life up to that point, a rich lacquered coach gilded with gold trimmings around the upper frame and doors, and summon-like figures on each corner. Four black-feathered chocobos pulled it, great muscular beasts of a far different breed than the animals the farmers in the town owned.

To our astonishment, two more carriages of the same kind followed behind it, equally as magnificent though they varied in decoration slightly, the second having painted panels on the doors and frame, the third with bronze rather than gold gilding.

After them, a long procession of smaller coaches and pulled wagons followed, no doubt filled with the belongings of whoever rode in the first,

"Do you think they belong to royals?" Tifa asked, standing up on her bare feet with her skirts pulled up in a puff around her knees. I shook my head to say I didn't know, and Drogus answered the same.

"They're beautiful," she said.

It was only when we returned home that evening that we found out that the Manor in the mountains had been purchased by new owners, though no one yet knew who they were. The manor was a large old style mansion located about five mile up from our town. The estate compromised the house itself constructed in the old-century fashion, large stables grounds and acres of land including that which the town was built on. It had once been owned by a younger brother of the king, centuries before, then a series of families with good lineage. At that time it had been empty for over a decade, since the previous owners had tired of the exclusion of country life, and moved across the continent to more vogue surroundings.

The younger children had been astonished that we'd caught sight of the new owners, even though we hadn't _really_ , and we spent the evening describing over and over again the finery of the curtains draping from the frames of the black carriages, the big ornate wheels and the small-looking men controlling the horses. In the end, I think we added imaginary details, just for their amusement.

I'm sure we seem like simple things, to be so taken with a glimpse of fancy vehicles, but again you have to understand that things were different back then. People of our kind thought of the upper-class as more than just glamorous, rich beings. They were godly, blessed with fortune and breeding and closer to the lifestream than the common population would ever be, the blood in their veins thick and purified with their lineage. They were the cherished; children of the planet, and we the servants at the alters, the sacrifices when need be. Perhaps that's still how the world looks at celebrities and perhaps it isn't so different in many ways, but back then for sure there was renown to be had in having glimpsed anything to do with these all but mythical beings with our own eyes.

All this being said, I wasn't actually that excited about the whole thing, and aside from recounting it to the children, I didn't think much of it afterwards. There were other, more human concerns at the time.

Things were not going well with the shop. It had been doing poorly that year, injured by the increased taxes on much of the perishable stock and suffering from competition from the ever-increasing influx of peddlers and travellers who sold much of the same merchandise at far better prices. My uncle had needed to reduce his inventory by a quarter by mid-Summer, and what that meant was that there wasn't enough money coming in to make a profit.

Tifa and I were the only ones old enough to see the deepening lines of worry on my aunt's face as she continued our education in the evenings, or the way uncle's hair went from grey to white almost in one season, and when we returned home that evening to see that hardly anything had been moved from the shelves again all day, I made up my mind of what I would do.

The following evening, after the shop had closed and we all had our supper, I left the flat to visit the local military representative that my uncle had spoken to before on my behalf, to see if there would be an opportunity for me to begin training as soon as possible. The man was drunk, sitting in the cabin of his little boat where he lived between services, docking at whichever town was near. With a candle lantern between us, he'd been more agreeable than I hoped for and left me with the impression that he would do his best to arrange a position for me. I ignored how his eyes, yellow in the light like a cat's, ran over my face and hair repeatedly as we spoke, taking in my features with an attention to detail he seemed otherwise too drunk to possess. This was not something unusual for me though; I was aware if not concerned that my appearance caught people's attention, my wild bright hair and eyes, but as with Tifa's friends who hung around the shop and made small talk with me during the hours I was working, I didn't pay any heed to the attention and just thanked him earnestly before I left. His hand gripped hard on mine and I wiped the sweat away as I exited the vessel.

The sun had fully set while I was in that little boat and it made walking back along the slippery pier a treacherous undertaking. The water was black beneath the walkway, only moving shadows – fish or monster – visible under the lolling current. The boats were rocking in the light tide, knocking and cracking against each-other while the nocturnal birds cawed out against the sky.

I became distracted by these things and by something else as well, something I wasn't conscious of the time but now know to be the atmospheric reaction to a new darkness that was pure and undiluted and unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. It hung in the air like a noxious gas, smothering me and altering my senses without my ever noticing it.

It affected my mind, something like an inhalation of sleep materia, and after a while all I recall is walking through what seemed like an unending dense mist that blinded me in every way, so that there seemed to be nothing behind me, nothing ahead of me and nothing in my mind – and then something.

Just on the edge of the street where the mooring breached the soft earth of the town roads, he was standing there, half lit up by the street lanterns at his side, and half in the shadows. The mist cleared in a path, leading towards him.

He was looking away as I approached, but when I came off the walkway, he turned and watched me come into the light.

I don't know how long the moment lasted in which I took slow steps towards him as he stood waiting for me. He was something between an angel and a demon standing there. Cast into darkness, his back to the lanterns, I couldn't make out his features aside from the pale hair hanging long around his torso, and the flickering of his sharp eyes reflecting what little moonlight there was.

The fog grew stronger and stronger in my mind, until by the time I reached him it clouded my vision so much that all logic and sense was lost. Everything had become liquid and swirling, the yellow window lights flicking within sharp irises, pupils in the flames, doorways and signposts the same as tanned flesh and dirt roadways.

My arms tingled with goose-flesh and I rubbed at one as I stopped there, staring into the face of the ether. All I could feel was a drunk lack of awareness as my lips parted to form senseless words.

"Did I fall?"

I wanted to know the answer, desperately. I imagined the leeches sucking my wet skin, one of my hands crushed against the rocks, the other reaching for the planks above.

The glimmer of white teeth.

"Where is there to fall to?"

The voice shook through me, and the smile. The awful moon's smile. I shook my head and wanted to move away, but couldn't.

"Why are you…?" The puddles of blood and warmed river water came to my mind again, "did I fall? Am I down there now?" I thought of the black water, the monsters climbing up from it.

"Why would you fall?"

"We all fall, don't we?" I insisted, I think I was pulling at my hair. It was wild and thick with the damp air; I couldn't get my fingers through it.

"Do we not rise again?"

I hurt myself with my fingers. "No..."

"Stop."

My fingers let go of my hair immediately. My hands were shaking as I lowered them to my sides and stared up into his face of blackness.

"Tell me your name."

I gave him my full name without a second's hesitation, I could do nothing else.

"Cloud," he repeated, the name coming out from his mouth like air instead of speech, "it's good to see you, Cloud."

A shiver ran through me, his voice flowing over my flesh like liquid.

"Do you live in this town, Cloud?"

I nodded and pointed out the flat to him, it was visible further across the road, down a ways from us. The upstairs lights were on and the chimney was smoking, I knew the family would be gathered in the living room now, one of the children taking their turn reading out from that week's novel.

"Your family are in there?"

"They are a family, I'm their ward," I answered. If I was lucid enough, I would have been shocked by my words, voicing something that up until then had been an innermost thought.

Fortunately, it would be a long time before I remembered any of the conversation.

In response to my answer, his smile just grew wider.

"I see."

A bird cawed above us and somewhere in the distance a monster screamed high up in the mountains. He turned his head at the distractions but I didn't look away from him, not for a second, until he finally bid me to.

"It's late for you to be out, child," the voice felt like it was inside of me, lulling me into a swoon, warming me even as I shook. "Go to bed now. Don't stop until you are warm under your blankets. Sleep then, for me. No more bad thoughts."

I sighed at the thought. "What about you?"

The eyes gleamed, the white teeth.

"Go on now, dream of rising, not falling."

I nodded, turning on my heel and looking towards the flat burning bright in the distance.

I remember nothing clearly from that point, just waking up the next morning in the bed I shared with two of my cousins. That was the first morning I woke with a headache.

* * *

One evening, almost two weeks later I think, I was helping my aunt move some display cabinets and shelves around the shop – she was attempting to make our fewer commodities look more attractive to customers within the dusty, wooden front room – when Tifa and one of the younger boys came running into the shop.

"Mother," she called, holding her brown skirts and apron up from the floor as she rushed over to us.

"What is it, child?" My aunt answered quickly, taking in her daughter's hurried, flustered movements. They were so alike, the most out of all of us with their dark hair and pale skin. Tifa was taller though, stronger built where her mother was more delicate.

"The lords from the Manor are coming in to town. There's a request for all business-holders to gather for a meeting with them. Father needs to go," Tifa informed us.

"A meeting?" Aunt Ena put down the baskets she'd been holding and dusted off her hands as she went around the counter to stand in front of her daughter. Tifa nodded.

"They've ordered it in the church within the hour."

Gossip in town had informed us that the manor had become host to three foreign lords. One owned the estate and the other two were his companions. There wasn't much known about them, only that they were all of great wealth and had arrived without the company of wives or children. Until that day, they had not interacted with the town in any way.

Aunt Ena shook her head, fingers going to her neck to massage the skin there, a nervous habit of hers. "Now what could they want?" She whispered at neither of us, eyes on the small front window as if she could see the future through it.

"Will we lose the business Mother? Will they take over the town?" Tifa asked, reaching forward to clutch her mother's hands. It took Aunt Ena a moment to snap out of her daydream, but when she did she shook her head firmly and shifted their hands so it was she holding her daughter's instead of the other way around.

"You do not need to fret about these things, Tifa," she said firmly, catching and holding her daughter's eyes before switching them over to me, "either of you. It's for your father and me to worry about." After that she stepped back and started to take off her work apron. "I'm going up to Ned. Cloud, leave this for now and we'll come back to it."

I nodded and shoved the cabinet back against the wall as she went around the counter and through the door behind that led up to the flat.

Tifa waited until the sounds of her footsteps were muffled on the second floor before she spoke. "Will they take the shop from us? Buy out the town so we'll have to live in the cities like coal children?" Her voice was hushed and full of dread. Tifa was strong in her dispositions; displaying the highest exuberance when cheerful but falling into deep anxiety at the first sign of any woe. Dramatic, as the say now.

"We can't know what they want," I said back, walking over to the shop counter and taking up the rag resting on it to dust off my hands, "it's best to just wait and see," I winced then, my hand snapping up to my forehead, "and we can't... upset the little ones by looking worried," I finished a bit breathlessly.

"I know," Tifa agreed. She watched me rub me at my head, "is your head still troubling you, Cloud?"

I closed my eyes in frustration. As I said, on the morning following my excursion out to the military representative I had woken up with a headache that grew worse throughout the day. I went to bed the next night hoping to find it gone after some rest, but the problem had only grown worse. I call them headaches, but they more resembled what are now called migraines, with the debilitating nausea and flashing vision that accompanied them. I had no idea what was causing them and my aunt's potions didn't seem to help. The other's thought it might be the warm weather, but I think I knew something else was wrong with me.

It wasn't just the headaches I'd been suffering from. Every morning since that first morning, I'd wake up feeling as if I hadn't been asleep at all, as if all of my energy had been drained, _pulled_ from my body like a wrung dishcloth on the mongers' bloody stalls. My limps felt weak and boneless, my organs heavy and slow. Moving was becoming a chore.

More worrying than all that, though it shouldn't seemed to have been, was how my mind was changing. These thoughts in my head, there from the moment I woke until I slept again, like the residue of the nightly dreams I couldn't remember. Shuttering, confusing things like a candles flickering behind my eyes. Flashes of what felt like memories but couldn't have been… They frightened me more than anything else, made me dread the night-time.

But why? Did I know even then, so young and ignorant of the dark powers of the world, that something was ending?

"Not so bad," I answered Tifa, declining to speak of all that, and of just how much helping my aunt move the shelves had drained me. I didn't want her to have any knowledge of these things; I dreaded not being allowed to pull my weight with the rest of them. I would have hid the headaches too, if it were possible not to react to them in front of the others.

"You're so pale, cousin," she said anyway, running her eyes over me.

"Just the work," I murmured back. Then to distract her I asked if she'd seen the lords. She hadn't, but wanted to.

So the two of us followed Ned out of the shop when he made for the meeting. We met Drogus on the road and as Ned went on straight to the church we headed over to his father's pub. The building was old and haphazard, with stone walls and wooden window shutters, but it was one of the tallest in town and by climbing onto the roof we had a good view of the front streets and the land beyond. We could see the church; an old structure with more modern glass windows and wooden support beams, tooth-like graves at the back.

The business-owners had gathered in a little group in the front. Ned and Drogus' father were among them, murmuring with the others in a silent, nervous thrum, each one of them dressed in their Sunday finery and combed and groomed as best as the time would allow. We waited a while; Drogus and Tifa on one side of the pub's large chimney, me on the other, trying to hide from them just how much I was clinging to the bricks after what felt like an exhausting climb up there.

Would this pass? I wondered as I waited. Was I very ill? I rested my head against the blackened stones, my hair falling in front of my eye, turned orange in the setting sun. An image flashed through my mind; of a young women with bright blond hair loose all around her, her thin arms and legs curled within it. Her skin was grey, the same colour as the blankets beneath her on the old, ragged mattress, and the scarlet blood was vivid against it, dripping over her hands clutched to her mouth. I was standing across the room from her, pushed behind legs that loomed tall around me.

Then I saw the three lords appear on the edge of the town, riding large, beastly chocobos of the same kind that had pulled their carriages on that first day. They were, surely, the very figures of what the words 'foreign lords' conjured in our sheltered minds.

The man on the left, riding a russet bird with gold fastenings around its neck, was tall and lean and had flaming auburn hair that the red evening had set on fire. He looked groomed and well-turned out in a wine-coloured long-tailed coat, with a ruffled shirt fastened high under his chin, and cream riding pants. The man on the right was not as finely accoutred but looked similarly impressive in a black and grey vest-jacket with billowing white shirt arms. His hair was very dark brown and fell to his shoulders, straight and orderly. He was very broad-shouldered and serious in contrast to the relaxed posture of the red-haired man.

These things I noticed in seconds and not in any great detail though. I couldn't, because it was the middle rider that captured all of my attention. That made my fingers dig in to the stones of the chimney until later I would see that they were bloody and worn down to the beds.

He was tall, heads taller than most men even sitting on his bird, and powerful looking, his body seeming to be made of solid muscle that was both lean and broad in perfect harmony. Like nothing I'd ever seen before, he had long silver hair, the very same colour as the blade of a sword, and it fell around him like an angel's veil, blazing in the sunset. His skin was pale and he was dressed in all dark clothes, a long overcoat with an open chest, thick leather boots reaching up to his knees. His eyes were a very sharp green and unsettlingly feline-like, though I'm not sure that was a detail I noticed at that point, from the distance. I just remember my breath catch in my throat, my entire system overwhelmed at the sight of something that looked like it had risen straight from the lifestream.

My heart was stiff in my chest and I don't know why I felt like crying.

"Do you see them Cloud?" Tifa called from the other side of the chimney. I swallowed and nodded.

"Yes," I nodded again, "yes I see them."

"I've never seen men like them, they're magnificent," she answered, and I could hear Drogus snort.

"Easy be magnificent if you have coin for it," he grumbled.

There was no procession of servants after the riders as I thought there would be. It was just the three of them – just! – and they were quick to come into the town and approach the church. The details developed as the distance closed between us, the refined structuring of bones, demonic but undeniably handsome with sharp pointed eyebrows and bowed lips. I watched those eyes move over the crowd in front of him, intelligent and assessing, as if it were not people he was looking at, at all. More like servants, puppets.

Sure enough, the townsmen looked like nothing around the men, pale and diminutive, as greetings were exchanged and proceedings towards the church doors began.

"What do you think they want?" Tifa murmured after they'd all gone inside. I moved back to look at the others from behind the chimney. The sun was almost gone and it was growing colder now, their faces had grown pale and then red around the nose and cheeks. In the background I could see all the small windows of the houses lighting up, little yellow squares dotting the patchwork landscape, families keeping warm and safe but not protected from the future. In the corner of my vision, my hair had turned deep amber but I knew the moonlight would bleach it white soon.

I looked over to the church again.

"We'll have to wait and see."

And oh, would I see. I'd see what the heavens see, what the angels witness. I'd see hell the way only one that falls from grace ever could.

* * *

Tifa and I helped my aunt put the children down to bed, which involved a lot of wrangling and repetitive story-telling and throwing little bodies around the mattresses, and then waited up with her for Ned to return.

The hour grew late as we waited, and the last log we'd put in the fire was an ash replica of itself by the time we heard the front door to the shop open below. We'd been sitting around, me on the windowsill looking out at the river and Tifa and aunt Ena on the settee with flat open books on their laps, and all listened together to the man's footsteps on the stairs and then to the noises of him taking off his shoes outside the door.

He came in, his face flushed as it was when he had drink taken, and the expression in his slightly dazed eyes wasn't what we were expecting at all.

"You are all still awake at this hour," he said first, closing the door behind him and walking over to the fire.

"Of course we are," my aunt tutted, getting up from her seat, "are you hungry love? I'll get some bread and tea. Tifa–"

"Can we not hear the news first, Mother?" The girl said quickly, closing her book and setting it by her side. She was still in her day dress, though she'd taken off the apron, and it tightened around her legs as she leaned forward with her elbows between her knees.

Her mother scowled at her but Ned cut in, surprising us all when he issued out a gruff, almost high-pitched laugh.

"News?" He uttered, shaking his head and turning around to face us, "such news! News I can hardly account for..."

"What, love?" My aunt looked away from her daughter to watch him, "you've had whiskey," she decided, looking at him in minor dismay.

"Yes, a celebration glass," he agreed, waving a hand in the air dismissively.

"Celebration?" This again surprised us. I pressed my shoulder into the glass of the window and watched him move his strangely wide eyes over each of us before going on.

"They want to put money into the town," he said, tone and expression almost as incredulous as ours, "they want become part-owners of our establishments and help bring new business out to us."

"Owners?" My aunt gave him a curious look, "they want to buy out our shop?"

"Only a small percent of it, as they would with all other businesses here, they'd be investors but wouldn't have much involvement in the daily running."

"Surely that can't be true," my aunt said, almost dreadfully, as if she feared the notion penetrating one ounce of her soul only to be ripped away as falseness seconds later. I felt similarly wary, watching my uncle for signs that he was jesting with us, or that bad news had possibly turned him mad. He looked mad enough, his eyes wide and not focusing on anything for long, his cheeks red and swollen.

But he wasn't mad. He was happy. A weight that had been years gaining burden had suddenly lifted in the space of an evening, and he hardly knew what to do with the relief.

I felt cold looking at it, afraid for him as I listened to his words.

"This is the way forward for the upper classes now, investment, infrastructure, not relying on old wealth. Founders of cities hold the power in this century, these foreign lords know that," he was going on, perched against the fire place with his elbow on the mantelpiece and his hip jutting out away from the heat.

"This will never be a city," Tifa admonished, giving him a tiresome look.

"You don't know that, my girl," he said back to her, "why not here more than anywhere else? We're not in a bad location and the river gives us a niche advantage. At the very least we could be proper market town. If anyone could make it so, it would be those men. I've never met their kind in my life."

"What are they like, Father? Where do they come from?" Tifa questioned eagerly, pulling her feet up on the settee and leaning against the arm.

"The owner is a lord from the Northern continent. Sephiroth Jenova. Descendant of the Calamity."

An awed silence fell over the room. Of course we all know the story of the extra-terrestrial lifeform that fell from the sky thousands of years ago, creating the northern creator and dooming the Cetra. We also know of the bloodline of the Calamity, the house of Jenova, whose ancient king became infused with the lifeform and developed abilities that, according to legend, would be passed down through his lineage for centuries to follow. The house was no longer prominent by the time of this story, conflict and political upheavals dividing the land, but the heirs to the clan were known to be spread out across the planet, still profiting from the great wealth of their ancestry and rumoured to possess the same abilities as the ancient king.

"One of them here? It can't be true," my aunt said, shaking her head. But I knew it was true, the silver hair, the eyes, they were the traits of the Calamity; no normal men would possess them.

"We saw him coming in," Tifa supplied, looking over at me for agreement, "he doesn't look like a normal man. Is… does he have abilities, father?"

Ned chuckled.

"Not that he showed us, and we didn't make ourselves out to be the ignorant peasants by questioning myths," he clicked his tongue, "I will tell you that he's an intelligent man, I could tell even though he spoke few words and it was his dark-haired companion that did most of the talking. Lord Angeal Hewley was his name, a better speaker than any politician or council man I've heard. He and the third man, Genesis Rhapsodos, are from the Mideel continent, both own colonies over there."

"What brings them here?" My aunt asked him.

"Investment," he said, shrugging, "our land is as of yet untapped after all. They want to claim it first. And they are young men really, in their prime. Men like that are restless, unwilling to just sit on a comfortable fortune. The three served as soldiers for years. They've seen conflict over as far as Wutia and are not long returned."

"Soldiers," Tifa repeated, awed. I thought it sounded right; I could picture Sephiroth Jenova riding into war like a serpentine of death, clashing against men as the surge of a tide.

"You'll see all this yourself of course. The lords want to review our establishments individually to see where improvement and coin is needed. They'll be making visits over the next few days–"

"What do you say?" My aunt jumped back a bit and her wary expression turned to one of panicked incredulity as she stared at her husband with her hands pressed to her chest, "they're coming here? To the shop?"

My uncle nodded.

"Shiva!" She said as she looked around the room and knocked her fist against her collarbone, "when?"

"I don't know the day, but it will be soon. They just want to assess the places and see what improvements are needed and the potential–" he gave the woman a scowl, "don't get into a fluster now. They're– "

"Into a fluster?" She cut him off with her hands in the air, "three lords in our little shop. And it looking so miserable now. They'll not invest if they see no potential in us. Do you have a notion of the work that needs to be done?"

We didn't, but we soon learned.

She had us up at the first monger's call the next morning, the girls scrubbing floors and dusting out the cabinets and shining silverware, us boys grating down the wooden doors and moving shelves and counters back and forth until my aunt settled on a layout she was pleased with. Tifa and I were sent on errands around the town, fetching this and that, even some luxuries like netted window curtains for the front windows, and linen tablecloths to go over the front stands, which we wouldn't have stretched for otherwise. My uncle wasn't pleased with all that but was hesitant to say anything against my aunt's insistence, and I think he was secretly as eager as she to show the little shop, so dearly cherished in his family, at its best.

My aunt did a good job. When she was finished the place looked something like it had years before when I was that sombre but apathetic child led through the door the morning of my mother's passing. The display cabinets and shelves were clean and polished with their contents aligned prettily on the shelves, carefully placed to make the shop look full and show the commodities at their best. Table linens and doilies brightened the room along with native flowers and little porcelain ornaments. There was a thick vase of flowers on the front counter, and another on the window sill; yellow flowers my little cousins had picked from the banks.

Twice they had to get fresh bunches before any lord stepped into the shop.

In the end, he took us by surprise. It was late in the evening, the shop was close to closing and I was standing at the front counter listening to my little twin cousins, who were sitting on top of it with their legs swinging, telling me about the huge monster they'd seen on the pier that day. Big as a sea worm they said, as a castanet. I remember their little hands waving in the air, distracting me from my throbbing temples.

Then the ringing of the front bell as the door to the shop opened.

Like a time-lapse of a withering flower, the room seemed to shrink in on itself, everything becoming small around him as stepped slowly over the creaking floorboards. Sephiroth Jenova, descendent of the Calamity. He was dressed again in dark clothes, another long black overcoat with the chest left open as far as his sternum, buckles along the sides, thick onyx boots. His skin and hair stood out sharply against the fabrics, but it was those green eyes pierced through like blades, the shop's lamp light having no effect in warming them.

I think it was minutes before I moved, though like a lot of things from those early meetings, I can't really remember. A fog settled over my mind again, nothing as intense as it had been that first night, but enough to make me numb to my own actions and words as I ushered the twins down from the counter and then walked around it.

My steps were light and slow, I can remember that, I'm not sure they were on the ground at all. I had to tilt my chin to look up at his face when I reached him, and I felt the bones on my neck freeze in place as he smiled down at me and took a step forward so his shadow completely consumed me.

"You know my name?" He questioned, narrowing his eyes even as he smiled.

"Sephiroth," I murmured back, not finishing the title.

"Do you know why I'm here?" I tried to shake my head, but couldn't.

"No," I said, "yes I…"

"Lord Jenova."

A noise from behind startled me so much I almost fell to my knees, as if I'd been a puppet held up with strings that were suddenly loosened. I snapped my head down and did a sort of clumsy step forward, moving closer to the lord. He wasn't looking at me anymore though. The twins had run up to tell Ned of our visitor and he'd come down fast.

"Lord Sephiroth, it's an honour to have you here," I heard him greet from behind me. Sephiroth looked ahead of me and moved forward as I stepped slowly to the side, trying to calm my heart as he passed. It was pounding as if I'd been running down from the fields. I blinked, staring at the wooden door in front of me, the space that he had occupied now empty, and shuddered when his voice filled the room again.

"The honour is mine. Apologies though, if I'm arriving too late." Coarse, smooth words. Not any particular accent, I noticed; his voice was without inflection.

"Not at all. We keep long hours here in the shop. Cloud had been looking after things–" at this point my uncle seemed to finally notice me, "Cloud?" He called, confusion pitching his voice, "what are you looking at?"

I shook my head and quickly turned around to them. Sephiroth was beside my uncle now and both were staring over at me, one in confusion and the other with no definitive expression that I could decipher.

"Nothing. Sorry," I said, clenching my fingers at my sides. Ned pursed his lips and watched me.

"Are you feeling well?"

"Yes," I answered fast, annoyed that he would ask it in front of the other man. The last thing we needed was for the investors to think of us as a poor, diseased household. Ned obviously didn't feel the same as he turned to the lord to explain that I had been suffering from headaches from the close weather.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Sephiroth answered, "is he your eldest son?"

"No, my nephew," Ned supplied, looking over at me again, "though of course we think of him as a son. My wife's sister's boy. We took him in after her passing when he was still very young."

"Generous of you," Sephiroth commented, and I lowered my eyes when he looked at me again. I always hated when others mentioned my past and the burden I placed on my relatives, and for someone like him to point it out. It burned my soul, as if it were made of scripture paper that someone had put a candle to.

"The planet teaches us the importance of family, above all else," Ned answered. Sephiroth's reply to that was simple, vague. _So it does…_

"Will the lords Hewley and Rhapsodos be joining us today?" Ned asked next. I only then took notice of the fact that the man had come alone to the shop. The three had visited all of the neighbours together.

"It will be just me," Sephiroth assured, "the others had business to attend elsewhere tonight." I wondered what this meant. Were we not worth the consideration of all three of them? Was Sephiroth merely visiting our little shop as a courtesy, having already deemed it unprofitable?

These things concerned me but I was soon distracted by the sounds of more footsteps on the stairs. My aunt arrived down with Tifa and the smaller children in tow. I could see that a hasty scrub and tidy had been done on each of the children, and that Tifa and my aunt had both taken off their aprons and redone their hair.

"And this must be the family."

Sephiroth addressed their arrival as smoothly as he seemed to be in all things, his attention to my aunt making her blush. She was a pretty woman but the years had weathered her and she had never been as beautiful as her younger sister, my mother, in the first place. My mother, I'm told, was the white rose of the valley in her youth, my aunt got her fairness from her kind nature and soft intelligence. He was not being overly charming or blatantly flattering, that was never his style, but she was not used to any sort of attention from a man like him and I watched it intoxicate her.

Ned introduced the children one by one, Tifa offering an open smile and the younger children giving faint greetings, gone shy now in his presence.

I stood at the door watching it all, the wariness easing out of me as I saw how pleasant Sephiroth was being with them. He wasn't what I expected, I expected arrogance and distance, to be constantly reminded how low we were beneath him and his companions, but he wasn't like that at all. He took time to become acquainted with my uncle and was patient with the children, not seeming to be in any hurry to rush to the business side of things as the children began talking over each other to ask him questions, the timidness quickly slipping away.

"Brice Cliffty says you are touched by the Calamity my lord, and that you have natural magic. Is that true? Are you able to make thundara with your eyes?" One of the twins questioned at some point, making my aunt laugh. Tifa scowled at him and looked at me sheepishly, but Sephiroth only leaned down on one knee towards the small ones.

"Hmm, not only thundara," he said, his voice low and conspiratorial as his hair fell around his face, "ice and flames as well. But it's best I don't show you, we don't want to set the whole town on fire, do we?"

The children's eye's went wide, like a little group of moogles. I watched the movements of his great arms and back from behind and imagined him in battle, clashing against other beasts, magic swirling around him. The images came easy, the play of the muscles beneath his clothes rippling in the shop lights.

"Did you really fight in Wutia? Did they have awful monsters over there?" Another of them asked. Sephiroth answered that he had and began describing the largest monsters he'd fought, how he'd destroyed them.

"Cloud is going to become a soldier soon. He's going to learn how to fight monsters too," the second youngest girl said once he'd finished.

Sephiroth straightened up and slowly turned to look at me, as did all the others in the room. "Is that so?"

Feeling put on the spot, my throat was tight as I answered, "my position won't quiet be the same," I said, reluctantly looking away from my cousin and to the lord, "I'm hoping to get a local position," I explained.

"And I'm hoping he doesn't," aunt Ena put in, giving me a bemused smile, "there are far safer means of employment than by sword, wouldn't you agree my lord?"

Sephiroth raised a sharp brow, looking between us. "I sense I've stepped into the middle of a family dispute," he said slowly, raising his hands, "I'll decline from speaking on either side, if it's all the same."

"A strategic move," Ned said, giving the lord a small grin. Tifa sighed.

Thankfully the conversation moved away from me and my future then as Ned invited the other back to the office to look over the documents he'd readied for the meeting. My aunt and Tifa went upstairs to get some refreshments to bring down to the men, and I was left to herd the small ones up after them.

However, as I was walking across the shop, making to go around the counter, a sudden heat spread across my right shoulder. It was like when one presses a healing potion to their skin, the warmth penetrating the flesh and making it break out in goose bumps. I turned sharply to find Sephiroth now standing right beside me, his hand on my shoulder.

"You should be careful of those headaches," he said, is voice low and his expression odd. I remember standing there and not being able to move or say anything back to him. It felt suddenly like we were alone in the shop, that the others had all gone away. The lights seemed to dim around us, until all I could see was the vivid layers of green in his eyes, a thousand shades swirling around each other with the temperament of storm clouds. They were not like other eyes, even then I sensed that.

Sephiroth lips parted in a soft smile as I stared up at him.

"They might mean more than you think."

The spell over me was released and I nodded quickly, taking a subtle step back from him.

He inclined his head, watching me move away. "Sleep well, child."

Upstairs, I left the children sitting around the fire to chat amongst themselves and went straight on to the bedroom up in the attic, relived to have an empty room to myself and not minding that it was dark and cold, with the only source of light being the moonlight coming down through the roof window.

It made the blond hair around my face shine white as I sat on the edge of our shared bed. I let my head drop into my hands, feeling a surprisingly thick sheen of perspiration on my forehead. Beneath my clothes my skin was hot and damp as well, and the headache that had faded away in my distraction downstairs, returned all at once with a vengeful pulse, unleashing all the pressure that had accumulated in its repression.

I didn't know what was wrong with me. I felt like I was losing control of myself. Or more, I felt like parts of myself were being taken from me. My dreams, my waking hours, they all felt haunted now, my mind a toy in a child's hands.

Was it a fever? Like my mother had suffered before she died. Was I, with her same blood, susceptible to it was well? Is that why my nights had become these churning, chaotic things that I had no recollection of the next morning, why my head was pounding in the daylight as if filled with memories that wanted to burst through my skull, why I imagined threats where there were none?

 _Child_

Tears came, fast and strong, though silent, against my hands. I let them, moving to lie on my side with my face pressed to the pillow. I was so frightened then, overwhelmed by things my young mind couldn't start to comprehend, and I wept because I thought I was going mad and dying from a human illness and it terrified me.

I think though, even then, that I knew those tears were for something else, _someone_ else, and they were pouring like summer rain down to him as he sat there, just two wooden floors and a world below. Like the creatures hiding in the black water, waiting to take their pound of flesh.

* * *

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